Breast cancer is a leading cause of death for women, and digital mammography screening is often used to help identify this cancer at its early development stage. In this regard, digital mammography devices are used to acquire mammogram images as part of screening procedures. The acquired mammogram images are sent to review workstations where radiologists review them for signs of cancer or other abnormalities.
Unfortunately, while use of digital mammography is quite helpful in facilitating early detection of breast cancer, examination of a mammogram image by a radiologist may be quite burdensome to the radiologist. In this regard certain rules, such as those defined by Mammography Quality Standards Act (MQSA) and the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA), govern the presentation of the images of a mammography to the radiologist. Given the current lack of technology for facilitating mammography examination in adherence to these rules, the burden imposed on a radiologist in manually manipulating a digital mammogram image to comply with these rules may be quite costly in terms of the time required to examine a mammography study. Accordingly, throughput in terms of a number of studies that may be examined by a radiologist over a period of time may be limited. This limitation in throughput may impact a standard of patient care, as patients may have to wait a longer period of time to receive mammogram results. Further, as costs of a mammography study may be based in part on a time required for a radiologist to examine the study, costs of this burden may be heavily born by patients and insurance providers.
One such rule governing examination of mammography studies requires radiologists to review mammogram images in their full acquired resolution. Unfortunately, when viewed at their native acquired resolution, mammogram images often do not fit within the confines of a single monitor or of an available viewport. Accordingly, radiologists are often required to zoom and/or pan the images to make sure all portions of the image are observed and/or reviewed to ensure that the totality of the breast region of a mammogram image is reviewed. Further zooming/panning may be required when images of a study are compared to old studies with different zoom settings or positioning. Such manual user interaction is inconvenient and time consuming for a radiologist.